


And Death Will Follow Softly

by Dellessa



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 18:09:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3619356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dellessa/pseuds/Dellessa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I curled closer to her as she slept. Peter wouldn't have me, and she was leaving me. I couldn't stand it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Death Will Follow Softly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreenPhoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenPhoenix/gifts).



I curled closer to her as she slept. Peter wouldn't have me, and she was leaving me. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't let it end like this. We could have been so happy together. We had been, and yet she threw it all away. She threw me away. I sat there in the dark, my mind raced, and an inkling of an idea formed in my mind. A horrible idea. I had seen how his eyes had wandered, how they had lingered on me. Her fiance was not a good man. Not like Mina deserved. He might have been dashing---perhaps too much like her father---but good he was not, and he wanted me. 

If anything it was a means to an end. I couldn't allow her to leave me, not when Peter wouldn’t have me either, not when it would leave me alone. She had kept saying I would find someone as wonderful as Captain Branson. Someone as doting. Someone who would love me. 

I didn’t want that. I wanted Mina. I needed her like I needed breath, and in the dark, while I clung to her. I wouldn’t let her leave me like this. 

Had I known what would follow I often wonder if I would have made our way from our bed and down to the solarium. Would I have wandered down the stairs to where I knew he would be waiting? Would I have taken on the madness knowing I would lose her either way. I don’t know. It seems no matter what I do I am doomed to lose the ones I love most. 

I didn’t know the future though, so I did get out of the bed, bare feet on the cold wood floor and I wandered down the stairs, into the dark, and as I knew he would be he was waiting. Even then there was a wrongness in me. I had thought I was doing a good thing. I thought I was keeping her by my side as I reveal what kind of man Branson was. She doesn’t see it that way. I could tell when she spotted us. The look on her face. I would never forget the look on her face. So many emotions flicker across it. Loss. Betrayal. Hatred. I had never thought to see that look directed my way. She hated me in that moment, and wanted me gone from her presence. 

She turned and fled and the house erupts as she screams, and we are found out. 

She wouldn’t talk to me. 

I was exiled. She closed me out, and the voices give way, dragged me down into places no sane person should go. Inside I screamed, and I tried to claw my way out. 

I was drowning. I was dying. I wanted to die, and yet I lingered. 

I lingered and died inside.

I’m still dying years later when I watched Malcolm shoot her. It was a mercy. I told myself it was a mercy, and yet my heart was breaking all over again. She reached for me again, and yet I was too scared to pull her into my arms. I’m too scared to grab her and hold her while her life is ebbing away. I couldn’t hear what he was saying as he pulled me up and away from her. I was cold. Dead inside. As dead as she was now. 

I looked down at her dark, staring eyes, and I wished the demon had taken me. I could have still been near her, and she would not be gone. I couldn’t stop staring. Maybe I would have stayed like that, frozen in eternity, but they lead me away. I looked back, and saw Ethan had gathered up her body into his arms. There was nothing right about this. 

I expected HIM to mock me, and yet he was silent on the matter as well. There was no taunting. No games. There was only silence. Deafening silence. 

I am alone in my head. It was dreadful. 

Malcolm lead me away, picked me up when I stumbled. I didn’t want to be near him. I didn’t want him to hold me, and yet I clung hard, held on to his lapel until my knuckles were white from the strain. 

He had made his choice, and I wanted to hate him for it. I wanted to cry out. I wanted to beat at him. He loved me in his way, and I wanted to resent him for it. I wanted him to die as I had seen her die. 

But he was the only thing I had left of them. Try as I might I could not help but love my father. He carried me away, and I knew I would leave London. I couldn’t stay here any longer. I needed an escape. I needed time to mourn. 

I didn’t even realize I was crying until we were back home and he was wiping my tears away. They burned as they crept down my cheeks, and he was wiping them away again. Malcolm didn’t speak or offer platitudes, something I was thankful for. 

“I need to leave,” I croaked. “I can’t stay here. I can’t be here. Please let me go. I need to go.” 

“Vanessa, you aren’t in your right mind. Give it a day.” 

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Ethan laying Mina out on the table. They would call the mortician soon, and make arrangements. I couldn’t be here for that. I couldn't. I could no! 

“I need---” 

“Vanessa. See this through. She would want you to. I want you to,” Malcolm said, and hugged me close. “I need you.”

“I need you too," I lied.

Long ago that would have meant the world to me, but in that moment I could only concentrate on the pain, and the terrifying knowledge that I never would see life in her eyes again. She would never take another breath. Never say my name.

“Vanessa?” 

“I will stay,” I whispered. There was no other choice.


End file.
